


Honey, You're Familiar.

by discokonomi



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, Drinking, Established Relationship, Food Metaphors, Hand & Finger Kink, Implied past Joe/Cherry/Adam if you really really squint, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Parallels, Skating as Metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29485260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discokonomi/pseuds/discokonomi
Summary: “This wine isn’t very strong, is it?” Kaoru asks.“It’s sweet,” he says. “Light enough for a summer night.”---In which two grown men worry about their friends, make tentative plans to go spear-fishing, and absolutely do not get drunk off of a single bottle of rosé.
Relationships: Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom
Comments: 10
Kudos: 116





	Honey, You're Familiar.

**Author's Note:**

> It's 2021 and I know I'm being baited but it feels so good.
> 
> This fic started out as a delightful and lighthearted examination of found families in Sk8, but then I got overwhelmed by thoughts of consumption as love and wanted to parse out my own worries about where this narrative is headed. So now it's either a dual character study, or a study of the Cherry/Joe relationship and how it can parallel the Reki/Langa one. 
> 
> Title is courtesy Hozier, From Eden.

Kaoru’s a lightweight.

It’s incredibly obvious to anyone who’s ever met him - any adult, at least, Langa and Reki be damned. To Kojiro, it’s something that he’s never not known.

(When they were barely 18 and on the cusp of graduation, sipping from cans of chuhai behind the skatepark, he knew - the way he could cup Kaoru’s wrist loosely in his hand - that he’d be giggly barely halfway into the can. He could see the future, scant minutes away: Kaoru would close the distance between the two, abandon their boards, and burrow his way under one of Kojiro’s long arms to cuddle into the warmth of his broad chest.

Kojiro isn’t a lightweight, but as he finished off Kaoru’s drink that afternoon, he could feel his cheeks warm.)

Now though, Kaoru’s barely made a dent in his second glass of a sweet rosé, but his cheeks already match the blossom pink of his hair. The blush is starting to travel down his face, down his neck, and Kojiro knows it will eventually disappear into the folds of his kimono. Like always, he wants to reach in and taste him - like a leech seeking the sweetness from the alcohol flush of his flesh, sucking in soft skin, licking away the hard edges.

“This wine isn’t very strong, is it?” Kaoru asks, biting back the embarrassment he would feel if he were sober, voice canted down to a low murmur in the late evening. There’s no music he needs to speak over, just the occasional scrape of a fork on a plate and the insistent pulse of their heartbeats.

Earlier, Kaoru slid through the back door of his restaurant, bearing no gift but himself and a ravenous hunger. He was waiting with an open burner and a bottle of cheap wine. “It’s sweet,” he says. “Light enough for a summer night.” Even these heady, humid evenings.

It’s been a little over a week since their impromptu vacation and Kojiro is relieved that, like old times, it’ll just be the two of them this evening. Having more friends than Kaoru is novel and exciting, but he’s forgotten how exhausting it can be, especially with how young their fellow skaters are.

There’s a lot on their shared minds - Adam, back in their lives; the pack of children and Shadow they’ve somehow acquired; revenge. It’s like the world around them is growing, big with possibility again. Their rivalry, their own kind of shared madness, has kept the rest of the world at bay over the years. It’s a charm, a talisman, that shields themselves from the inevitable heartbreak S feasts on. To skate in Okinawa is a lot like starving; it does not reward gluttony, and you can see it in the broken shadows cast over Reki’s eyes, the way Miya latched onto them all so quickly.

What they have - their lifelong friendship, their rivalry, these moments of Cherry and Joe - is more than precious. And so they pack it away, cushion it with artifice, hide it behind their cultivated fanbases, careful personas, endless beefs.

Carla is silent and charging beside them as Kaoru picks at his meal, sipping his wine, Kojiro unflinchingly stealing tomatoes despite the fork his dearest friend wields like a weapon.

“We should go spear-fishing,” Kojiro says suddenly. “Catch some fish, grill them after. A bit of salt, some light beer. You’ll like it.”

Kaoru looks up at him, eyes narrowed but lacking the heat of malice. “You pumpkin-headed bastard.” He pops a tomato into his mouth, chews, and thinks about it in the hazy way the wine-drunk do. “Why would I go fishing when I can have a gorilla like you do it for me?” He chases this with a smirk, of course, the flash of light on his glasses. 

Kojiro smiles, because Kaoru is definitely a lightweight. He’s unflinchingly honest when drunk - more than willing to wave his fan to deftly avoid a customary extra pour or two of sake for the sake of saving a business deal. On the island, the extra haze of drink bolstered his competitive spirit and didn’t affect his perception, quick as he was to snap at Reki’s hand reaching out for the extra dregs of sake.

With Kojiro somehow that honesty sharpens his harsh edges. It blunts the sword edge of his insults, paints the corners of his mouth with affection and transforms a smirk into a soft smile. Beneath the bite of their arguments has always been the syrupy sweetness of fond affection, hard won through a lifetime of friendship. 

He wants to suck out that sugar. If Kaoru’s outermost layer is a projection of serene softness - the sugar that curates a fanbase of obsessively sweet school girls, that tricks businessmen into treating him with kid gloves, that envelops the bite of hard candy, sharp sugar glass - then inside the molten core of his being is a passionate caramel sweetness, the kind that’s wrapped up in the core of Kojiro, too.

It’s that innermost core that Kojiro, selfishly, wants to keep only for himself. While he wants to suck the sweetness from his skin, he’d give anything for Kaoru to reach into his body and burn his fingertips on the fire inside. They’re perfectly matched. 

Where Kaoru is sweet, he is smoke - the wisp of flame, the burn of oil. Cherry is mystery, but Joe lays it all bare - and in that external lie of honesty rests a hint of truth. Kojiro is a boy - when he skates and sails through the air, he carves a hard path through the sky and calls it freedom. Kaoru, meanwhile, curves his way through the air on the whistle of the wind. He makes it his own, but is light enough to be carried with it. One slices; one arcs.

He’s spent a long time thinking - and spilling the thoughts that weren’t incriminating to Kaoru as they came to him; he’s pretty sure they’ve agreed to spearfishing this summer, at least - when Kaoru finishes his meal and looks up at him again. Still no malice, but no mirth either.

“Langa,” he says. 

“And Reki,” Kojiro agrees.

There’s no point in worrying about Miya and Shadow quite yet - their erstwhile son and neighborhood skate clown have either escaped or evaded Adam’s notice. Safety is in being unseen.

Tapping his fan to his lips, Kaoru wonders. “I’m worried. Adam is… Adam. If Langa has Reki, they’ll both be fine. But if Reki looks away for even a second.” He taps again. 

If Reki lets Langa float away, they might never recover. It’s a story they know well - one they’ve seen time and time again, from even before S was founded. The only reason they’ve survived Adam and his aftershocks is by sticking together, but they’ve had the bedrock of their friendship set since they were kids watching Tony Hawk clips on Kaoru’s well-loved iPod.

Kojiro sighs. “Reki wants to be better, but Langa doesn’t need him to be better. He just needs him there.” Even as he says it, he knows it’s dumb.

“Reki doesn’t deserve that and you know it, you pompous gorilla!”

“I know! They’re strongest together. But still." Reki is grounded; Langa can fly. Together they own heaven and earth, a bond Adam can't break. Separated, Adam will feast on their weakness and call it love.

It's an old story - the creeping sin of pride turning friendships sour. It's easy to watch a stranger skate circles around you; it's harder when it’s your friend. It’s impossibly difficult to not feel betrayed when it’s someone you love.

Kojiro thinks they might be projecting a little. “They’ll be fine,” he says. They have to be, he doesn’t say.

In the silence between them, Kaoru hears and agrees. He hears something else too, something louder than the blood flowing through his veins and the even-keeled pump of his heart. The sizzle and burn of something melting; crackle of a fire, whistle of smoke, the threat of burning.

Without asking, Kojiro takes what remains of Kaoru’s wine and chugs it. He pouts.

“You glutton, you’ve drunk most of the bottle.” 

“Like you’ve ever finished a full bottle of wine in your life.”

Kaoru sighs. “Why would I ever finish one on my own when I have you with me.” Kojiro gulps, and flushes. His oldest friend smiles.

Some strands of his hair have fallen into his face - they really do match his flush. Kojiro extends one big hand to push them aside, move them behind his ear, and Kaoru lets him.

He chases the heat with the rest of his head, leaning into his palm. He turns so Kojiro carries the weight of his forehead in his fingertips, so Kaoru can look up at him through the gaps between his fingers with his honey eyes. They’re syrupy and golden when they meet Kojiro’s oak eyes, and then they burn.

Kaoru might be a lightweight. He might be most honest with himself now, burrowing into Kojiro’s hands and arms and body for affection, the proof of their connection. He might be terrified for these children who’ve been brought into their orbit, and he might worry that they can’t save themselves the way the two of them have. 

When they’re Cherry and Joe their bond is brittle like spun sugar; in these moments it feels like they’re moving through caramel, smokey and slow. This is where and when they thrive. Alone, together, in a stolen spring afternoon or a heavy summer night. When they cut through asphalt, feel the sparks on their wheels, match their speeds and own the open road and open air - that’s when they’re alive.

He believes Langa and Reki can get somewhere like that - he has to believe, when he’s living it. 

Kaoru kisses the palm caressing him, chases the heat and the flame. Kojiro closes his eyes, runs his thumb across his brow. One of them leans in, smoke meets sugar. It doesn’t matter who.

**Author's Note:**

> When Kaoru said Langa... I felt that.
> 
> I want all of these characters to be happy, but Adam is... Adam. I know that most of their tension is played up for humor, but I think it's fascinating that Cherry and Joe are canonical childhood friends who helped to start S and somehow survived the dramatic tire fire that is Adam. 
> 
> The only way Langa and Reki are going to survive to skate another day is if they stick together! Power of friendship! Love yourselves!


End file.
